Tony Riley is one of Lyson’s accredited colour management specialists with a
particular interest in the enthusiast and non-professional market. As a lecturer and judge
within the Surrey Photographic Association, and also a lecturer in Photoshop at North East Surrey
College of Technology (NESCOT), Tony has been all too aware of the difficulties experienced by enthusiast
photographers and the struggle they have to match monitor to print.
The concept of colour management is not an easy one to
grasp and the vast majority of photographers find it difficult to understand many of the issues involved. After several years of
endeavouring to explain the procedures to groups of photographers, it became obvious that here was a
problem that was unlikely to be solved by tuition and explanation.
The cost of commercially accurate calibration and profiling was also unlikely to make these services an
option for non-professionals.
In examining this market segment, it is clear that there is a
definite need for colour management, but that the market tends to be primarily RGB based with a
simple desire to make images look good. Printed output needs to be predictable and bear a close resemblance
to the monitor image, but absolute colour accuracy and CMYK conversions for commercial press are rarely, if ever, required.
Tony offers an economic, bespoke profiling service for colour inkjet printers and with very few
exceptions the customers have been well satisfied.Many of them are enthusiastic users of Lyson inks and
papers. The service is primarily web-based and requires the client to
download and print a measurement target, which is then sent for assessment
to Tony by post. The resulting profile file is then delivered back as
an email attachment. At each stage of the process detailed instructions can be printed from the website and
Tony has gone to great lengths to ensure these are easy to follow,
mostly by the use of annotated screen grabs of the various dialogue boxes involved in the printing procedure.
In making initial judgements about colour accuracy, most people tend to be primarily influenced by
the monitor image, because it is both visually arresting and tangible.
If the print does not match the monitor, the assumption is that the print is incorrect. In fact, it is highly
likely that both monitor and printer are delivering less than accurate renditions of the data in the image
file and both must be addressed separately to resolve the problems.
“Whoever first thought of the
acronym WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) certainly had a perverse sense of humour,” says
Tony. “As I travel around the camera clubs giving presentations and workshops on digital imaging it is
all too plain to see that what you see is very rarely what you get!
“The printer manufacturer’s driver software is written very
specifically to ensure that reasonably good results are achieved
when using their own inks and papers. Even at this basic level there will be a major problem with the
printed output if the monitor itself has not been reasonably well set up
to ensure that the image on the screen accurately reflects the actual colour values in the image file.
“A good correction profile dedicated to a particular ink/paper/printer combination will ensure
accurate print reproduction and, together with a well set up monitor will ensure predictable and repeatable performance from your
imaging system,” he says.
Tony has enhanced his service by offering telephone based support, specifically aimed at assisting digital
imaging workers, not only with calibration issues, but also any other problems they may be experiencing.
Printer profiles cost from £35
and technical support is available from £20 for 30 minutes.
Email: profiles@imagetune.co.uk
Web:
www.imagetune.co.uk 
